Netbook.com as seen in 1997

Intel has purchased the Netbook.com domain. The page currently redirects users to Intel’s page describing the Intel Atom CPU. The page features a bit of news, some reviews, and information about the Atom processor. 

Just a few short months ago, there was no accepted term for low cost, low power subnotebooks like the Asus Eee PC and HP Mini-Note. Intel favored the term netbook, while competing chip-maker VIA was pushing “mini-notebook.” Whether it’s because there are far fewer VIA-powered machines on the market than Intel the Intel Atom is grabbing all the headlines from the VIA C7-M, or just because netbook is catchier, netbook seems to be winning. Bloggers and journalists have begun using the word as a shortand, and even Best Buy has added a new netbook category to its online store (even if Best Buy’s copy writers don’t seem to understand what a netbook is).

So the Netbook.com domain is probably a pretty valuable property to hold right now. I consulted the Internet Archive’s Wayback machine to take a look at the domain’s history. From 1996 through 2001 or so it was a “directory of people on the internet.” Type in a name, and the netbook would try to spit out an email address and/or URL. How cute.

In 2007, Netbook.com was a site dedicated to information about the Psion Netbook, a handheld computer running the Symbian Operating System that has been out of production for a few years.

There’s no telling what the future holds for Netbook.com. But somehow somehow I doubt you’ll find a lot of information about the VIA Nano CPU or machines utilizing that chip anytime soon.